The Olympic Village for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris is reportedly well - stockpile with free condoms — about 300,000 , to be exact . “ It is very important that the conviviality here is something big , ” Village director Laurent MichaudtoldSky News .
That message is a stark pivot from the past twoOlympic Games — Tokyo 2020and Beijing 2022 — when nasal swabs and societal distancing put back hugs and handshakes , and athlete had toleavethe Olympic Village within48 hoursof finishing their events . commonly , they can all stay through the closing ceremonies , allowing them to share in the rollicking political party cultivation that has characterized the Village for decennary .
But even as theCOVID-19 pandemicquelled celebrations in near quarter and athlete wereforbiddenfrom any “ unnecessary form of physical physical contact , ” one traditiondidn’t change : free condoms . In Tokyo , they number around 160,000 , and officials accommodated the sundry signals by simply recount everyone to take the rubber home with them as souvenirs .
They were meant , organizers explicate , to parent sentience about HIV / AIDS — which , coincidentally , is also why the custom began back in 1988 .
Sex Education
By the time Calgary , Alberta , Canada , was preparing to host the 1988 Winter Olympics , AIDS raged across the world . Public health expert suggest Olympian organiser to supply their athlete with free rubber , which were then stocked in the apothecary’s shop at the Olympic Village . Sure , competitor had to demand for them , but there was n’t exactly a polish of secrecy around sex during their stay : The on - campus store even carried porn magazines .
“ We ’re not running a straightlaced temperance society here , ” Olympic Village city manager Bob Niventold the Associated Press .
AIDS prevention plans were already in the works for the upcoming Summer Olympics , too , which would take place in Seoul , South Korea , that fall . After scrapping aproposalto test all the athletes for the disease , officials decide tosupplythe Village with 6000 or more condoms , along with pamphlets explaining the hazard of insecure sexuality .
later on Olympic organizers upheld the precedent , varying the particular and increasing the telephone number of rubber with zestfulness . When Albertville , France , hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics , the36,000 condomsdistributed were loose for athletes and roughly $ 2 a pack for other personnel ; the condoms also matched the colours of theOlympic rings : blue , yellow , black , green , and blood-red . At Barcelona ’s Summer Olympics later that year , the condom , which now numbered at least 60,000 , were ab initio available to purchase from vending political machine in the Village ’s on - sitediscotheque . But allot to one newsreport , athletes “ complained they never had the correct modification , ” so officials just handed them out for free .
Lillehammer , Norway ’s 1994 Winter Olympics featured peddle machines , too , some installed in an elementary school day converted into temporary housing for volunteers . Though student were on break during the Games , socio-economic class was still in session when the dispensers first appear in the halls . “ The machine came as a total surprise . In add-on , there were notes saying that some of the condoms had a taste of hoot , which the students here found extremely amusing , ” one school principaltold the press . He cover the dispensers with theme , which the scholarly person promptly tore off .
It was also in Lillehammer that news outletsreportedan unholy flood of prophylactic cramming the sewage system , due to Olympians ’ drug abuse of flushing them down their toiletsaround the clock .
It Takes a Village
Since its inception , the barren - rubber usance has overtly get at moderate the transmission of HIV and encouraging safe sex . That did n’t necessarily change with the arrival of the twenty-first century , as AIDS is still a worldwide crisis . But thesuccessof extremely active antiretroviral therapy ( HAART ) as a shape of HIV treatment sparked hope in the late 1990s that those experience with HIV could go on to direct long , healthy life story . So in the other aughts , the commercial marketing and publicity surrounding condoms at the Olympics began to be a little less about public health and much more about winking at the by then well - knownamorous tendenciesof Olympians .
At the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney , Australia , athlete were depleting the 50,000 - secure rubber cache so apace that producer Ansellshippedan additional 20,000 to the Village several days before the closing ceremonial . “ guess by the requirement the laurel wreath tally is for certain rising both in and out of the sporting arena , ” an Ansell spokesperson said . He also revealed that product with “ peppermint dark-green macho-man ” and “ strawberry ribbing ” were particularly hot commodities , and that certain athletes had asked for gravid sizes . Durex take up over as supplier for the 2004 Athens Olympics , offer a staggering 130,000 condoms and 30,000 lubricant packets “ to shine the performance of the world ’s elite sports people in the arena and under the covers , ” according to astatement .
All the condom talk also gave rise to a number of nervy and now and again poorly - believe think man about everything from how intimate activity mightimpact athletic performanceto which Olympians shouldcouple up . One2008 articleeven laid out a math trouble asking reviewer to use stats — condom supplying , number of athletes , length of Games — to determine how often Beijing ’s Olympic contriver had expected competitors to get physical .
The condom count hovered around100,000until 2016 , when Rio de Janeiro broke all record by distributing450,000 condoms , 100,000 of which were female condoms ( afirst in Olympic chronicle ) . And while the detail continue to vary from Games to Games , the reason for the giveaway is the same as it ’s always been : Birds do it , bees do it , even earth - class jock perform near - superhuman feats do it — and since they ’re going to do it , let ’s make trusted they do it safely .
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A version of this story originally run in 2022 ; it has been update for 2024 .
